


like a feather, soft and light

by aspiringpencilcase



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, sugaoiiwa the best roomies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 19:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5304848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspiringpencilcase/pseuds/aspiringpencilcase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>yamaguchi goes to visit suga during the beginning of his third year and everything goes down. featuring silly little crushes and solid Big friendships also everyone is a precious kid</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a feather, soft and light

“hey, what if u come to tokyo in the beginning of the summer break? i could show u around the uni and i have some room for u to stay! think about it!” Sugawara Koushi texts Yamaguchi Tadashi after a solid hour of discussing his uni and Karasuno’s team shenanigans, messages peppered with emoticons and usual sly snark. Yamaguchi frowns at his phone, contemplating. It definitely sounds like a good idea; “if you don’t mind me bothering you then it would be great!!” he texts back. His phone buzzes in exactly ten seconds after he presses send. “ofc u r not bothering me, why would i suggest it then? ok, i’ll talk to my flatmates, hope they won’t mind! :)” he reads.

Yamaguchi smiles at his phone and flops back on the bed, looking at the small “suga-san is typing…” on the conversation screen. He still has to ask his mother, but he has a feeling that this is going to work out. The curtains in his room waver a little from March breeze, as if they are agreeing with him.

He is currently sitting on Sugawara’s bed in his tiny room, legs crossed, and listening to Sugawara telling him all sorts of stuff about the university which he’s studying at and, simultaneously, Yamaguchi has his sights on. Yamaguchi is an attentive listener, and Sugawara is a good friend, so the conversation is going quite smoothly.

He was kind of worried about how their meetup will go since they only kept in touch via messages during this year, though it proved to be kinda unreasonable later: they did experience a few seconds of strained silence when Sugawara met him on the station upon his arrival, though it was broken by Yamaguchi letting out the loudest yawn in, probably, his entire life. Sugawara snorted, Yamaguchi giggled like he couldn’t really help it (he truly couldn’t) and after a short warm hug from Sugawara, things fell seamlessly into place.

They hit a small coffee shop near the station to buy something to “maybe lessen your resemblance to a panda," as put by Sugawara, and Yamaguchi grinned, a bit lopsided, and nodded.

Tokyo grew on him in fifteen minutes they needed to get from the metro station to Sugawara’s place: it was huge and impossibly alive, and there were all kinds of people engrossed in their own business passing by, somewhat like busy ants minding their business. Sugawara already seemed a part of it with his fast walk and light smile, unaffected by the amount of people surrounding them.

They’d got to Sugawara’s place with no problems, and they managed to discuss Karasuno’s first years and how captaincy was perfect for Ennoshita, who could keep the whole team in check and follow the dynamics of their oddball duo with ease. The question of the next team captain wasn’t discussed at great lengths, since the team and Ennoshita himself had their sights on Yamaguchi when it was time to choose, so. 

“You greet me with a yawn and now you’re all up and running just from talking about how great of a captain Ennoshita was, honestly, what’s with that?" Sugawara teases him and grins at Yamaguchi’s pout.

After a few minutes of discussing the finer points of Nishinoya being the vice-captain and encouraging first years to move at least as much as he did, they'd reached Sugawara's apartment block.

"It's nothing fancy, and, well, sorry for the mess in advance, I guess?" Sugawara half-asked, half-laughed, just a little self-consciously, and Yamaguchi waved his hand at him in dismissal.

"You've seen what my room looks like at its worst, I doubt you or your flatmates could beat it," he smiled at Sugawara, who just nodded and got his keys out of his pocket.

That's how Yamaguchi found himself in his current position with a cup of lukewarm tea in his hands with his former vice-captain in front of him, telling him about his economics course.

“The amount of material you need to cram before finals really is astounding, though,” Sugawara crunches his nose in disgust and sighs, “I don’t know what i expected.”

“Worse than college entrance exams?” Yamaguchi asks, kind of bewildered. Even Ennoshita, the smartest out of the senpai quintet, looked nervous about the amount of material he needs to revise before them, which, for Yamaguchi, was a feat in itself.

Sugawara winces. “Probably on par, I would say, but imagine having entrance exams several times a year.”

Yamaguchi lets out an audible whine.

“Ah, you’re still thinking of doing engineering, right?” Sugawara asks, taking a sip of his green tea which smells kind of citrus-ey.

Yamaguchi nods enthusiastically. He likes maths and physics a lot, languages were never his strong suit, and he wants his work to be useful, something people will actually need in their everyday life. Engineering seemed like a reasonable enough choice, considering all these circumstances. 

“Maybe electronics or something more specific, though, I haven’t decided on the exact course yet,” he smiles, fidgeting a little.

“And what’s Tsukishima thinking of doing? Knowing him, it will probably be statistics or something equally, well. Tsukishima. Right?” Sugawara’s grin is teasing and Yamaguchi prefers not to notice the sharp edge of it.

“Tsukki’s good at pretty much anything academic, he can choose whatever. So he’s kinda lost, though he doesn’t admit it. I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon enough!” 

If his voice is a little bit louder than he intended it to be, Sugawara plays along and nods.

Sometimes Yamaguchi still does a double take when a message from Sugawara comes and his name shows up on the screen of his phone. They had gotten closer to each other before Sugawara’s graduation: Yamaguchi asked him about the university he was aiming for, which, to Yamaguchi’s knowledge, had an excellent science department (his mother graduated from the exact same place).

They chatted about university-related things from time to time and Yamaguchi was pretty much convinced it would stop at that, at least at first. The time their conversations weren’t strictly about college gradually increased, and Yamaguchi occasionally found himself hitting the ramen place nearby their school with Sugawara, laughing about their teammates’ flashes of endearing stupidity during practice. They continued to hang out during the summer break, after Sugawara’s graduation, and somehow this grew into a solid friendship, the fact which Yamaguchi can’t help but feel surprised about sometimes.

He offers Sugawara a toothy smile. “Thank you for letting me stay at your place, Suga-san, and for bothering with me while I’m here. I really appreciate it!”

Sugawara’s grin grows a little softer. “Don’t be silly, Yamaguchi. I’m always here to help a friend out!” He titles his head a little to the left and his smile touches his eyes, Yamaguchi finds it infectious and gives in to quiet laughter.

“Okay, do you want me to show you around campus? The main building is in something about twenty minutes of walk or we can take the bus,” Sugawara yawns a little and stretches, arms above his head. “Otherwise I will just fall asleep right here and the only tour you will have is to the kitchen.”

Yamaguchi nods in agreement and grabs his backpack. He doesn’t exactly want to walk around the city with the belongings he brought; he drums his fingers a bit nervously near its zipper.

“Something the matter, Yamaguchi?”

“I was just wondering, can I maybe leave this here?” Yamaguchi gestures at the small bag he’s just pulled out of the backpack. It doesn’t even contain much, just his toothbrush and clothes to sleep in, but the perspective of carrying it all around still doesn’t exactly fascinate him.

“Of course, just drop it on my bed,” Sugawara smiles and after a few minutes of Yamaguchi fumbling with his backpack’s zipper, they are ready to go.

The sky is grey, there are too many clouds to tell their lazy soft shapes apart. People passing by are mostly shielded by hoodies, even though it isn’t raining and the air feels dry and brisk in its coolness. The crowd is flowing by, rapid, a current rivaling a river’s, when Yamaguchi spots a familiar face. He squints, trying to understand where has he seen it. Ah, of course, that’s --

“-- former Seijou’s number two, yeah,” Sugawara’s grin is almost audible in the way he says it, "Iwaizumi. You weren't exactly subtle, you know,” he breaks into a small laughter as Yamaguchi tries to hide his embarrassment with the best Tsukishima-like huff he can manage. To his horror, Iwaizumi gets closer and closer and this is rapidly gaining the potential to be the most awkward situation in Yamaguchi’s entire life.

Thankfully, it never gets there: Sugawara waves at him and offers him a smile, to which Iwaizumi responds with a brief nod, and there’s that. They don’t seem like they’re just acquaintances, though, and Yamaguchi finds himself wondering.

“Uh, you two know each other well, right? It kind of seems so, at least,” he shrugs a little. Sugawara brightens and nods.

“You could say so. When you live with someone and manage to tolerate them during their finals and dirty dishes, friend status comes sort of naturally,” Sugawara says, sly. Yamaguchi actually manages to trip.

“You’re flatmates with Iwaizumi-san?” he steadies himself and turns to stare at Sugawara, who just nods.

“We met during tryouts for the volleyball team and he really needed a flatmate, so I offered my assistance! Better than the dorm, trust me,” Sugawara’s smile doesn’t really waver, but his eyes warm up a little and Yamaguchi hums in agreement, feeling the corners of his mouth forming a grin. This is easy, talking with Sugawara always is, and the seamless way they seem to click with each other just makes him want to smile, so he does.

"So, let's proceed to the uni itself, unless you have a specific place you'd like to visit?"

Tokyo is vast and Yamaguchi himself doesn’t know if there’s somewhere he wants to go in particular. He rubs his lips and frowns, thinking. “Not really, just walking around campus would be alright!” he says after a solid minute of trying to pick something especially interesting out of huge list of Tokyo’s sights. Sugawara nods.

The walk to the campus doesn’t take long, just as Sugawara predicted. He shows Yamaguchi the building where engineers have most of their classes (“I have a few people i know there, so here you go! Ours is way cooler, though”), the actual main building (“Told you it’s cooler,» to which Yamaguchi just snickers) and a stadium. Yamaguchi gazes at the buildings somewhat in awe, feeling the resolve within him strengthen.

Sugawara lets out a tiny laugh next to him and Yamaguchi turns in his direction, a little flustered.

“It’s nice to see you all lit up like a tree,” he says, a tiny bit amused, though it’s obvious from his grin that he’s pleased to see Yamaguchi so impressed. The most eloquent response Yamaguchi can muster is turning a little pink.

They walk around a bit more; Sugawara tells him stories about the parties and about his groupmate ending up cuddling with his chair once, calling it “beloved,» and all kind of hilarious stuff; Yamaguchi laughs his way back to Sugawara’s place.

It’s almost dark when they near the entrance of Sugawara’s apartment complex. Following every single sitcom’s laws, Sugawara’s phone starts to buzz just when he reaches to grab the doorknob. He curses, quiet, and fumbles with his bag to get the phone, having to squint a little at the caller’s name.

“Iwaizumi? Yeah, sure. We’ll be here in twenty minutes or something then, okay.”

With that, he ends the call. Yamaguchi tries not to show his curiosity but it must be visible on his face, because Sugawara waves his hand a little.

“Nothing important. Iwaizumi says we’re out of salt and it’s my turn to do chores this week, meaning we have to drop by a supermarket. Sorry!” Sugawara put his arms together in apology and Yamaguchi shakes his head.

“It’s okay, Suga-san! Is it a long way from here?”

Sugawara’s frown disappears, as if someone smoothens his skin in one fluid motion. “Nah, it’s really just a few minutes away,” he points at the nearest traffic light. “We just have to turn left there and then it’s just around the corner! Well, pretty much so.”

However, they don't even manage to reach said traffic light, when Sugawara suddenly makes a small oh! sound.

A person, illuminated by the gentle light of the lamppost is headed towards them, waving at Sugawara. Yamaguchi doesn’t even have to squint this time - he would recognize Oikawa Tooru everywhere (probably). Apparently, Suga-san is friends with the whole Seijou team, he thinks, amused, and watches Oikawa get closer. He looks up at Sugawara, expecting him to greet Oikawa and move along.

“If it isn’t Suga! Iwa-chan told me about the salt and I went out of my way to buy it, now you owe me,” Oikawa grins instead and Yamaguchi curses his blasted imagination because the word ‘halo’ shouldn’t come to his mind even if the lights do paint Oikawa’s complexion with the lightest touch of green and wow.

He startles when he catches Oikawa looking at him and prays to all gods imaginable that he doesn’t blush, preparing to introduce himself and --

“Hold on, I remember you. Karasuno’s former #12, right? The pinch server?” his words are light with, surprisingly, no hint of malice, but Yamaguchi’s fingers still intertwine when he nods. “Yamaguchi Tadashi,” he smiles, feeling his ears turning just a little bit pink.

“Nice to meet you, Yamaguchi-kun,” Oikawa winks at him.

Yes, nice, really nice.

Oikawa ends up walking to the apartment block with them, talking with Sugawara, practiced back-and-forth banter, and Yamaguchi can’t help feeling a bit out of place. He figures it’s natural, since he’s close to only one party in question (actually, same goes to Oikawa, but he’s, well, Oikawa, so it doesn't seem to bother him). Yamaguchi does offer a quiet snicker or two to the most outstanding pieces of the conversation, but he fails to make much input outside of that, sticking to keeping his pace up to Sugawara’s. 

“Say, Yamaguchi-kun, how’s Karasuno holding up? Eliminated in the first round of preliminaries or something?”

Well, maybe a little malice. Oikawa’s voice is friendly and even, his trademark smile and all, Yamaguchi knows it’s most likely just to rile him up, but he can’t imagine it not being even a tiny bit personal. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have that short of a fuse - if he were that easy, he wouldn’t last an hour with Tsukishima, let alone be friends with him. 

“We’ve been doing pretty well, actually. What about you, Oikawa-san? Are you still playing?” he decides not to dwell on the topic of Karasuno. Besides, he truly is interested in whether managing to both play volleyball and get relatively good grades is just some sort of a superpower Sugawara holds or is it something that actually can be repeated by someone else. 

Oikawa laughs, short and amused, and nods. “Changing the subject already? Yes, I do. I’m the setter in our university team, you know, and…”

“And now watch him boast about how good he is for another week or so,” sighs Sugawara in fake annoyance, but his lips curve into a small smirk.

“Why are you so cruel, Sugawara-kun?” Oikawa pouts, and he’s back to Oikawa Yamaguchi has caught peeks of during matches with Seijou when he was a first-year. Sugawara teases him in return and the conversation flows easily, leaving Yamaguchi to his own thoughts about the sparkle in Sugawara which attracts all sorts of people to him, and the confident way Oikawa talks and the way the strap of his bag draws attention to his neck muscles, lean and noticeable. He isn’t sure he wants his thoughts to even go in this direction but he can’t stop them and this just ridiculous.

They get disrupted when Oikawa opens the door to Sugawara’s apartment complex with his own key. 

Wait.

Yamaguchi blinks twice, confused, and Oikawa raises an eyebrow at his expression. “We are flatmates, in case Sugawara-kun didn’t told you,” he says, and it sounds more like a question than a statement, which Yamaguchi feels kind of obligated to answer.

“We live together, all three of us. Sorry I didn’t tell you, I guess? It just never seemed important, so…” Sugawara speaks first, filling the gap in the conversation, and Yamaguchi feels all sorts of grateful.

“No big deal, Suga-san, really!” he shrugs, and with that, they get inside.

 

They spend the evening drinking tea (“Are we secretly old men?” demands Sugawara, to which Yamaguchi offers “I’m younger than you, just so you know,” which earns him three glares) and Yamaguchi learns far more things about Sugawara’s college team than he’s ever wanted to. 

He also discovers that by some miracle of nature (more like tons of hard work, Yamaguchi is sure of it) Iwaizumi and Sugawara both made the team in the first term of their second year. Oikawa is studying art history in a different university than the both of them; he’s made the team during the second term of his first year and Yamaguchi absolutely fails to find it surprising.

“There was a good setter before me, a senior, but he graduated. Aren’t I just lucky?” there’s gleam in Oikawa’s eyes as he says it, but Yamaguchi is sure everyone in the room, including Oikawa himself, knows that luck has nothing to do with it: it’s not like the team was caught by surprise with their setter’s sudden graduation and latched on the first person who was fitting the definition. Luck is managing to pet a grumpy stray cat without getting scratched, or getting a right answer on an English test. Oikawa’s solid presence on the court, his skill level, the way he soothes his teammates into one sturdy, sure flow is another thing whatsoever.

He remembers his first truly successful jump float, the confidence, blood racing through his veins, faster, higher, stronger; knowing that that net-in wasn’t luck, not at all, and it comes to his mind that just maybe, he and Oikawa have some things in common. He feels something curling warmly, low in his stomach, at this thought; it’s far from being unpleasant (of course, this is Oikawa-san we’re talking about, he’s amazing, Yamaguchi reminds himself).

Judging by the Sugawara’s small hum, accompanied by smile in Yamaguchi’s direction, he might be thinking the something along the same lines. Yamaguchi feels his cheeks tingle; it’s one thing to entertain yourself with musings about possibly sharing something with the people you admire, but someone else noticing the resemblance is another thing entirely.

“You two look awfully conspiratorial,” Iwaizumi says. He’s occupying the small armchair they have in the corner of their living room, while Oikawa looks up curiously at Yamaguchi from the floor, where he sits cross-legged. Yamaguchi shakes his head and laughs, embarrassed.

Later, when Sugawara goes to do the dishes while declining every Yamaguchi’s offer to help, Yamaguchi goes to the small balcony to have a bit of a fresh air. His skin is warm since he’s been inside for the whole evening, so the contrast of temperatures is enough for him to shiver. He rubs on his nose, feeling that he’s about to sneeze, when he hears the sound of steps behind him and Oikawa’s voice.

“Bless you, Yamaguchi-kun,” he sounds awfully smug. Yamaguchi curses as the urge to sneeze momentarily passes, and, god, what even is wrong with that man.

Oikawa takes the place near him, gazing into the sky. His lashes are short and thick, Yamaguchi can’t help but notice, and suddenly the 15-years-old him pops up in his mind saying ‘his serve really is incredible’, voice breathy with excitement. It was two years ago, get a hold of yourself, his current self is desperately trying to level out the situation before he makes googly eyes at Oikawa or something worse when Oikawa speaks.

“Do you believe in aliens, Yamaguchi-kun?”

The situation resolves itself. Yamaguchi blinks; this is probably on the “Top-something list of things I have never expected to hear from Oikawa Tooru (given he’ll talk to me, which he won’t)”. He chooses words carefully.

“The notion that we’re alone in the universe does seem pretty far-fetched, considering the amount of things we don’t know about the space yet. I think there must be someone besides us out there, yeah. Why?” 

Oikawa actually turns to look at him. He looks a bit thrown-off, as if he’s imagined Yamaguchi to laugh or just not to take it seriously, and shrugs. “Well, I should make some kind of small talk with our guest, right?” 

Yamaguchi wants to tell him that he might be a good actor, but he’s graduated the Tsukishima school of dealing with people who don’t necessarily mean things they say, because he doesn’t miss the spark igniting in Oikawa’s eyes when Yamaguchi says that he believes in aliens indeed. 

“Do you?” he asks instead. 

Oikawa nods, eyes bright with delight. It’s really satisfying to watch, Yamaguchi realises, Oikawa being simply pleased with something trivial, like people sharing his views on extraterrestrial life. “It’s just so cool,” he makes a little hand gesture and suddenly Yamaguchi remembers the shelf full of dinosaurs in Tsukishima’s room and snorts. 

Oikawa glares at him, putting his hands on his hips, and Yamaguchi rushes to explain.

“My friend, Tsukishima, the tall one with glasses, maybe you remember him, likes dinosaurs. A lot. He made me watch The Jurassic Park more times than I can count and I, um, noticed the resemblance.”

“I haven’t made you watch anything yet, though,” Oikawa smirks and leans on the wall, so Yamaguchi’s eyes are almost forced to trace the smooth lines of his body. He bites his lip, fighting back a smile, and Oikawa seems to genuinely enjoy seeing him so affected, judging by the way the corners of his lips are turned upwards.

“Well, you could? I guess.”

He hopes he doesn’t redden too much while saying this, but his cheeks are burning with vicious flush, which screams otherwise. 

“Well, aren’t you bold, Yamaguchi-kun? But yes, I like the idea. There’s this movie claiming to be the new Star Wars in the cinema this week. How about we watch it tomorrow?”

“I would like to, but what if Suga-san or Iwaizumi-san don’t want to?”

“Yeah, what if we don’t?” Sugawara’s smiling face pops up in the doorframe. Yamaguchi nearly jumps, while Oikawa merely shrugs.

“Well, I’m sure you will find something to entertain yourself while I’m getting to know Yamaguchi-kun better! Both of you don’t like aliens anyway and, besides, us fellow servers should stick to each other, right?”

“Aren’t you a setter,” Yamaguchi offers a bit weakly.

Somewhere beside Sugawara, Iwaizumi laughs, deep and short, and Yamaguchi resigns himself to an evening out with Oikawa and watching movies about aliens. Well, he did tolerate all the dinosaurs movies while not being particularly fond of dinosaurs themselves and here he is at least invested in the subject. 

The hardest part will probably be the ‘stop-staring-at-Oikawa’ one, but he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it, he muses, when Sugawara turns off the lights. Yamaguchi shares a room with him, taking his bed, while Sugawara takes out the spare futon to lay it on the floor. Yamaguchi tried to argue with him, but it got him nowhere: first, Sugawara was too considerate to make the sleeping arrangements the other way around, second, he’s prone to take naps on the floor anyway. 

“One of those people, you know,” he smiles, small and toothy, so Yamaguchi accepts the offer to take the bed. 

(he thinks of brown tea of Oikawa’s eyes as he falls asleep)

***

Iwaizumi, being harshly considerate the way he always seems to be, leaves after having lunch with all of them, tolerating Oikawa’s teasing about finding himself a date and promising to get him back for it later. Sugawara’s eyes gleam suspiciously at that, as if he knows exactly what Iwaizumi is up to, but won’t tell. 

He also tells Yamaguchi that Daichi would like to see him too, maybe this evening or tomorrow, and he nods enthusiastically. He could really use some advice on captaincy, he says to Sugawara, who smiles in agreement. 

“Oh, Yamaguchi-kun, are you the future captain? Good luck with bossing Tobio-chan around!”

“Thank you, Oikawa-san,” Yamaguchi says, unsure. Maybe the last evening was a bizarre dream and they won’t go to this damn movie and Oikawa will bid them goodbye and go with Iwaizumi and. 

“But I’m afraid that this evening is my turn to teach Yamaguchi-kun stuff, so you will have to keep Daichi occupied. I’m sure you will figure something out!”

Sugawara grins, wide, and Yamaguchi tries his best not to blush. It’s only his fault that the words ‘to teach stuff’ don’t exactly associate with space trivia or tips on improving his serves. 

A few hours later, he walks down the street in closer proximity to Oikawa Tooru than he’s ever thought he would and listens to him talk about, unsurprisingly, aliens. He thanks all the gods he knows that he’s good at physics, because he can actually participate in the conversation and not just nod politely. 

Yamaguchi is amazed, to put it mildly, to find such an easy topic to keep the conversation flowing. Usually he would find himself overwhelmed with having to live up to such a presence nearby and fall all over himself trying to find words to say, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, they both laugh at some incredibly stupid theory about possible inhabitants of Jupiter Oikawa has recently dug up online.

He doesn’t notice time fly by, and, suddenly, they’re already near the nearest cinema’s cash offices. Oikawa insists that Yamaguchi’s ticket is on him, saying that since, technically, it was him who asked Yamaguchi out, he needs to take responsibility. They both snort at his wording, but in the end, he does pay for both of the tickets. Yamaguchi is mostly preoccupied with begging himself not to fidget, so he doesn’t protest much.

Of course, he trips when they take their places. It’s something of a tradition for him not to notice a step when he enters a cinema hall, he doesn’t even feel embarrassed by it anymore.

When Oikawa grips him by his elbow to steady him, though, he feels that the previous statement might’ve been horribly incorrect. He mutters something that was supposed to sound like ‘thank you’, but he’s afraid it was mostly indecipherable. When Oikawa lets go of his hand, his fingertips brush the sensitive skin of the inside of his arm and Yamaguchi feels like he’s been dipped into a tub full of boiling water.

His heartbeat mostly calms down when they reach their seats. There are only a few commercials, surprisingly enough, but there’s still plenty of time for Yamaguchi to concentrate on something which is not invisible traces Oikawa left on his skin.

Oikawa’s eyes are glued to screen during the first half an hour. After this, the movie magically transforms from a promising sci-fi to a generic love story with plot holes and horrendous physics. Yamaguchi points it out in a hushed whisper and Oikawa laughs, quiet and short. Their elbows touch on the armrest when Oikawa turns to look at him, amused, and Yamaguchi is hyper-aware of the contact. This would be funny if it weren’t happening to him, because, honestly, elbows aren’t even sensitive, it’s not like their thighs are touching or something and this mental image is the last thing on Earth that Yamaguchi needs right now. 

He offers another snide remark on the happenings on the screen to distract himself and they end up commenting on the weird structure of space-time continuum the movie presents. Oikawa doesn’t seem bothered by the glares they earn from the people who sit below them; in fact, he actually looks like he’s enjoying this. Yamaguchi just sighs and resigns himself to being the person everybody angry tweets about after they went to the cinema.

“Do they really think it works like this?,” Oikawa asks him in stage whisper and Yamaguchi can’t help but giggle, quiet, because actually it would be the other way around. He turns to Oikawa to say it and catches him looking at him, that simple, and now they’re eye-to-eye; Yamaguchi finds himself unable to even inhale, let alone blink, when he notices faint blush on Oikawa’s cheeks.

The moment passes, as moments usually do, Oikawa goes back to looking at the screen and everything is as back to normal as it can get: they keep tearing the movie’s plot and frivolous attitude towards science apart, the couple in front of them radiates displeasure and Yamaguchi registers the smooth way faint glow from the screen envelops Oikawa’s features. The whole affair is kind of surreal, but Yamaguchi doesn’t find it in himself to mind.

The credits start to roll and people begin to leave. Yamaguchi asks Oikawa if he wants to follow their example and receives a somewhat strained nod of agreement. He’s a little flushed, Yamaguchi notices, but he tells himself that the stuffy air of the cinema hall is to blame, nothing more and nothing less. 

He himself is under no illusions about the nature of his own blush, though. 

On their way back to Sugawara’s place, they walk just a touch closer to each other than they did while going to cinema. The conversation flows just as seamlessly as it did, though, with its topic shifting from things far out of their reach to more earthly ones, for example, Yamaguchi’s future captaincy. Yamaguchi still isn’t sure that the likelihood of it ending successfully is any higher than finding water on Mercury, but he’ll try his best and more to make it work, like he always does. 

“To be honest, I wouldn’t give you half a credit to be a captain when we first played each other…”

“Wow, thank you for the encouragement,” Yamaguchi mutters, but Oikawa doesn’t seem to pay attention to his words.

“...but the improvement you’ve went through is certainly something. If you managed that, then I don’t think you should work yourself out over it, Yamaguchi-kun,” he sounds thoughtful. 

Yamaguchi didn’t think that his evening could possibly resemble a very weird dream more, but it manages to outdo itself. He gives Oikawa a wide-eyed look; Oikawa just shrugs.

“Have you ever received a compliment before?”

“Uh, yes? Sorry for reacting like that, it’s just,” Yamaguchi makes a gesture. He’s gotten better at the whole being praised thing during the second year of high school, but it was mostly his teammates or Shimada, who is more of an elder sibling now. Oikawa is a different thing altogether, though Yamaguchi isn’t sure he wants to explain all of it. 

“Just what?” judging by Oikawa’s smirk, he hopes to get the rise out of him, but Yamaguchi is stubborn when he wants to. He can’t stop his cheeks from heating up, that’s for sure, but at the very least he doesn’t stumble across his words as if they were rocks, round and caressed by the sea.

“I’ve admired you when I was in my first year, pretty much everyone did,” he is getting just a touch defensive and at this rate Oikawa is going to get what he wants, “and I don’t receive compliments from players way above my skill level every day, you know.” Yamaguchi shrugs in the most casual way he can muster.

Oikawa hums and the rest of the walk is devoted to shuffling between discussing space and volleyball; excitement flutters its wings in Yamaguchi’s chest. Half an hour of walking seems like a few minutes.


End file.
